statement and how this statement came about. . the statement was never released by the ukrainian government. but did president zelensky and his aides understand it to be if i come out publicly and say, yes, i will investigate burisma, ei the bidens, ie president etrump political opponent at the moment, then i will get my military assistance? why would he be compelled to do it in the first place and why didn t he do it? from reading of the text messages it seems far clearer that what was at stake was not the military aid in exchange for the assistance, it may have been an oval office meeting. it may have been they would come to the united states to meet with trump. if they put that statement out, it would where have made that meeting a lot easier. the interesting thing about what the ukrainians did is they realized how sensitive of it was to get more deeply involved in american politics and ultimately decided against doing this.